Arbitration

The Baltimore Orioles reduced their arbitration caseload to four during the weekend, signing designated hitter Sam Horn to a one-year contract worth $687,500.The final salary figure represented the midpoint between the $850,000 salary that Horn requested during the arbitration filing process and the $525,000 that the club offered.Horn, who earned $205,000 last season, hit 23 home runs and had 61 RBI in 317 at-bats in 1991."We were pleased with his improvement last year," general manager Roland Hemond said.

The Orioles are scheduled for an arbitration doubleheader today, when club officials meet with representatives of first baseman Randy Milligan and centerfielder Mike Devereaux.General manager Roland Hemond, club counsel Lon Babby and assistant GM Frank Robinson are in Chicago today to present the club's case in back-to-back hearings at the O'Hare Airport Hyatt Hotel.Milligan is asking for a $1.4 million contract for the 1992 season. The club has countered at $900,000. Devereaux filed for $1.075 million after a season in which he set career-highs in both home runs and RBIs.

Though voters approved in November the use of binding arbitration to settle contract disputes between Baltimore County and police officers and firefighters, it appears the process will have no role in labor talks that got under way last month. County Executive James T. Smith Jr. has asked the County Council to have a lawyer review the proposed amendment to the County Charter that would put the new system in place. Although the charter will eventually reflect the will of the voters, it may take until the next round of negotiations in four years before the change is put into practice.

How many of you would give up your rights to get a cell phone that works, a car that runs properly, or a home repair that actually fixes what was wrong? I'm betting most of you would object indignantly. But for years you've been signing away your rights to properly remedy any problems you may encounter with defective products and services without realizing it. Almost every time you get a credit card, finance a car, get telephone service, sign up for insurance, take out a loan, take a new job or purchase any number of things, you're likely signing contracts with insidious mandatory arbitration clauses that force you to waive your rights to a jury trial.

Where do the Orioles, and the rest of the major-league teams for that matter, go from here?Now that the expansion draft is over, what happens next? What is the order of priorities?Trades? Free agents? Players eligible for arbitration? A potential lockout for spring training?The last question, which most likely will be answered in less than three weeks, is the most ominous. Management and labor have until Dec. 11 to decide whether the current basic agreement will be re-opened before it expires next year.

Not all of the Orioles' attention is centered on free agents these days. They also have two salary negotiations that have to be settled within 10 days if arbitration hearings are to be avoided.Pitcher Alan Mills' case is scheduled to be heard a week from tomorrow, Feb. 10, with outfielder Mike Devereaux on deck 24 hours later. Both hearings are in Chicago.The Orioles apparently have made some progress toward resolving the issue with Devereaux, but aren't any closer to an agreement with Mills.

Baltimore Orioles pitcher Bob Milacki will become the first player to take the club to salary arbitration since 1980 if his contract dispute is not settled before a hearing today in Chicago.Milacki filed for a salary of $1.18 million for the 1992 season. The club submitted a $700,000 salary figure. The Orioles have a history of finding some middle ground in negotiations with their arbitration-eligible players -- they have done so in every case since infielder Billy Smith took them to a hearing 12 years ago -- but an arbitration showdown with Milacki now seems almost inevitable.

Today is D-Day for Mickey Tettleton.But there were no hints coming from either Tettleton or his agent, Tony Attanasio, whether the catcher will accept the Baltimore Orioles' offer for salary arbitration. The deadline for accepting the offer is midnight tonight.Tettleton was en route to Oklahoma yesterday from his winter home in Arizona when he said: "I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think I can really answer anything right now."Attanasio, speaking from his San Diego office, said only, "No decision will be made until tomorrow [today]

Baltimore County police officers with more than nine years of experience should receive 4 percent pay raises next year, according to an arbitrator whose findings were made public yesterday. As a result of the arbitration, the raises, which will cost about $4 million, must be included in the budget to be proposed by County Executive James T. Smith Jr. this month. The step increases for officers with more than nine years of service would make midcareer salaries of county officers more competitive with the midcareer salaries of police officers in other jurisdictions, said Cole B. Weston, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4. "It's important to stay competitive with the other jurisdictions, all of which are getting cost-of-living raises this year," Weston said.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 yesterday that punitive damages -- a sometimes costly addition to actual damages verdicts -- may be awarded under the standard arbitration agreement used by many stockbrokers.Unless a broker and an investor make a specific contractual promise to each other that punitive damages will be excluded if they get into a dispute, their agreement to follow the securities industry's usual arbitration rules leaves that option open, the court said.A punitive damages award is intended to punish a wrongdoer and to deter others from causing the same kind of harm.